Outside the Office: Daniel Cook's journey from shop class to crafting unique cigar box guitars

Daniel Cook grew up in Marble Hill, Missouri, the youngest child of four. He loved Tonka trucks, Hot Wheels and helping his dad build things around the house. When he wanted a treehouse and tire swing, his dad taught him how to make it. By the time he was in seventh grade, his family moved to Jackson, Mo., where he began taking shop classes — crafting shelves and gun cabinets — and eventually took to repairing antique tractors and trucks. His hands were always building and hammering, his brain always designing and planning.

“I just picture something in my head, sketch it out, and go from there,” Cook said. “I like to make something from nothing.”

Through the years, Cook has made a lot of somethings from nothing, including longbows and knives for hobby, plus practical items like building a desk for his daughter’s apartment, or framing out and finishing the basement in his home. Not only does he like to use his hands to create, but he likes to figure out how to take something you would find in a store, maybe even something expensive, and then do it for less. Taking parts and using them to form a whole is kind of his thing.

For the past 19 years, Cook’s been doing that type of work as a parts professional with McCoy Construction and Forestry [previously Erb Equipment]. When customers walk in or make a call to the store, Cook helps them identify and purchase parts for their John Deere equipment.

“I get to work with the toys I played with as a child, just bigger versions,” Cook said. “And I love the interactions with customers and figuring out what they need.”

Outside the office, Cook uses this same skill to figure out what he needs for the hobbies he enjoys at home. Most recently, he turned his attention to cigar box guitars, and after doing three months of research, began making them at home. A cigar box guitar is a working instrument made out of various materials around the house. The anatomy is similar to a full-size guitar but many are made with only three strings. The cigar box [cut with sound holes] is the body and the neck is made out of wood. But the fret, tuners, tailpiece and bridge can come from just about anything — hinges, nails, bolts and nuts — even a yardstick can become the fingerboard.

Cigar box guitars date back to the 1800s when supplies and resources weren’t readily available, especially for the poor. Wanting to make music, people figured out you could put wood with a box, string it up and have a fiddle. Today they are built just for fun, but back then, they were built out of necessity. For Cook, learning the history of the cigar box guitars has been fascinating, and almost as much fun as making them.

“People [throughout history] have just figured it out. They had to for survival,” Cook said. And knowing where we are today with technology, they didn’t have that. A lot [of those skills] get lost over time.”

When Cook made his first cigar box guitar, he didn’t tell anyone, not even his wife, Tina. He wasn’t sure people would understand the concept or his reason for wanting to make it. And while he comes from a musical family, he didn’t know how to play the instrument. He was sure it would be viewed as ‘just another one of Daniel’s hobbies’. But now, 12 cigar box guitars later, with plans for many more, he’s learning to play the guitar as he builds.

“I’ve played ‘Amazing Grace,’ but only on one string because I haven’t gotten my chords down yet,” Cook said. “[But also] ‘I’ll Fly Away.’ A little bit of ZZ Top’s ‘La Grange.’ A little ‘12 Bar Blues.’”

Each guitar is built in a small shop in his basement and, on average, takes about two weeks. He built the “Biblecaster” for his preacher cousin, using a cedar Bible box of the same size. Another one, made with a license plate, he calls the “platecaster.” And his smaller-sized, travel guitar, he calls “gypsy.”

Most of his guitars are acoustic and made with the standard three-string model, but Cook’s also built a “diddley bow” with only one string. In a few of his models, he’s experimented with adding a pickup, giving an electric-guitar option. No matter what he builds, Cook looks for uniqueness and originality — in the cigar box itself and the materials he uses to create them.

Currently, he has 70-plus empty cigar boxes in his basement, many purchased from Tobacco Lane in Cape Girardeau, but three of them from a recent trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Cook says he wants to build up inventory and hopes to attend a craft fair or festival in the future.

“I love going to craft fairs anyway, and I’ve always wanted to make something to vendor and show off,” Cook said. “But I’m not looking to travel. This isn’t a business. And I’m not in it for the money. This is just a chance to build whatever my imagination wants to.”